| According to Hitachi, the DZ-MV100A will be the first camcorder on the market that records images onto a digital versatile disc. But first won't necessarily spell success. 
 Dataquest analyst Mary Craig said she believes consumer demand will lag until the price of the camcorder and DVD-RAM discs comes down. 
The camcorder will sell for nearly $2,000, which Craig called "too expensive" for consumers. Each 2.8GB disc will run $20 to $30 and hold about two hours of images
 In addition, the 8-centimeter DVD-RAM discs, which are physically smaller than the conventional DVDs used for studio films, can't be played on most DVD players. 
However, Hitachi expects that a DVD player that can read DVD-RAM will eventually hit the market, said Greg Belloni, a Hitachi spokesman. 
At CES, Panasonic also announced that this spring it will begin selling the VDR-M10, a DVD-RAM camcorder with similar features to Hitachi's model. 
 |